soy formula

[Rosamunda]

It is not always easy to diagnose food allergies once a baby has already been weaned. In our case it was simple, my son had never eaten anything other than breast milk and the first time I tried a bottle of formula feed he blew up like a ballon, turned bright red and had a rash over most of his body. This happened while he was still feeding, it was almost instantaneous. But many children don't react so violently at first. They may have recurrent ear infections or asthma or eczema. If the child is already weaned and eating many different fruits, veg, meat, fish, biscuits etc etc then finding the source of the problem can take weeks and weeks. I was lucky: living in Paris, I was referred to a leading paediatric allergologist and a dietician and we had all the tests done at the Institut Pasteur which did specific RAST tests on the different milk proteins (there are hundreds of different proteins in milk). He had a "Class 6" rating on caseine which explains the violence of his reactions (and possibly also the fact that 12 yrs later he is still allergic to milk). He was also Class 4 and 5 for the alpha and beta proteins. It was months before we got him onto a stable appropriate diet with the right formula (which was not soja, but a hydrolysat, I sent the info to Micky already). He was hospitalised maybe 6 or 7 times during his first year.

Sometimes what appear to be atopic symptoms (like eczema and asthma) are not allergy related at all.

I remember getting totally exasperated with the doctors. Once we were in Necker (THE leading children's hospital in France) under Professeur de P**** (THE leading paediatric dermatologist in France) and every day I saw a different doctor with a different opinion on his condition. The dermatologist dismissed the allergies as unrelated to the eczema (he pushed the cortisone on us), then the allergologist told me that as soon as we finished the cortisone treatment the eczema would come back because we hadn't solved the allergy problem. Then the pneumologist dropped in and dismissed the whole thing as "just a skin problem". Then an interne came in and asked if she could use our case for her studies. She was the only one who was really interested in his diet. The allergologist refused to get involved because we weren't his patient (hospital politics are unreal).
Arrgggh!

Anyway, we eventually moved house because we suspected allergenes in the stonework of the (very old) house were causing the asthma (looking for a respiratory physiotherapist on New Year's Eve is not fun). We carried on with the cortisone. He went on a highly restricted diet which included only ham, turkey, lamb, rabbit, apples, pears, banana, carrots, French beans, rice, pasta and plain white bread. Coming to Finland in those days was a nightmare (impossible to find turkey or lamb anywhere other than Stockmann). And I started making everything from scratch (a.k.a. posh nosh) - no prepared foods with dodgy labels since.

Being in Finland has made life easier. The schools really do cater for kids with special diets and most people are more aware of the seriousness of food allergies than in France (where no one can understand why you could suffer respiratory failure from eating a piece of Camembert). Shame the Epipen is not paid for by Kela; that's 50 euro a shot (whether you use it before its best-before date or not).

Doctors don't always have all the answers and they don't always agree either.

I know the allergy clinic has long waiting lists. It can take months to get the skin prick tests done, and even they are not infallible. Trial and error is a good way to start. But as I explained to Micky, Soja milk is not IMO the way to go long term.


PS: Micky. Thks for your msg, my PM reply to you is still in my outbox, which I think means you haven't read it yet....